During the event, which was scheduled outside of his home state – at a venue where the audience was required to attend – Cruz made quite the spectacle of himself with a speech that seemed far more like some kind of ridiculous religious sermon than a simple presidential announcement. Naturally, the speech was essentially nothing more than right-wing propaganda and talking points.

One such claim came when Cruz said that small businesses were going out of business in record numbers.

“Think just how different the world would be. Imagine instead of economic stagnation, booming economic growth,” Cruz said. “Instead of small businesses going out of business in record numbers, imagine small businesses growing and prospering. Imagine young people coming out of school with four, five, six job offers.”

First, it’s laughable that he’s trying to claim that this country is seeing nothing but “economic stagnation.” Considering that 2014 was one of the best economic years in our nation’s history, it’s ridiculous for any Republican try to claim that the economy has been stagnate.

Knowing that the economy has been growing at a pace we haven’t seen since Bill Clinton was president, Cruz’s claim that small businesses are going under at a record pace just doesn’t make any sense on any level. So it comes as no surprise that Politifact rated Cruz’s small business claim as “False” considering it wasn’t based on any sort of reality.

Not only are small businesses not dying off at a record pace, but the rate at which they’re failing (according to the latest numbers from 2012) has fallen back to where it was in 2005, 1998 and 1988. And being that 2013 and 2014 were much better economic years, logic would then dictate that when those numbers come out, the small business failure rate should be back to what it normally is in non-recession years.

Furthermore, when you look at the trend of this rate over decades, two of the worst periods of time for small businesses happened in the early and late 80’s. You know – during “conservative icon” Ronald Reagan’s presidency.

This is what blows my mind about Cruz. It’s not just that he slants information or takes things out of context to suit his agenda, it’s that he flat-out makes stuff up and blatantly lies on an almost constant basis. Even when you just go by the latest numbers concerning small businesses and their failure rate, there’s absolutely no way anyone can look at that information and come to the conclusion that they’re going out of business in “record numbers.” And considering our current economic climate which is almost entirely positive, that doesn’t even make sense. He can run his mouth about the Affordable Care Act all he wants, that’s normal for him – but for him to still try to perpetuate this idea that the economy is doing poorly is an absolute joke.

Allen Clifton is a native Texan who now lives in the Austin area. He has a degree in Political Science from Sam Houston State University. Allen is a co-founder of Forward Progressives and creator of the popular Right Off A Cliff column and Facebook page. Be sure to follow Allen on Twitter and Facebook, and subscribe to his channel on YouTube as well.